The Mandalorian: Season 2

The great thing about Favreau’s approach is that he doesn’t get bogged down in the needlessly complex plotting that blights so much prestige TV – and, for that matter, recent Star Wars films. Instead, he carves a sharp through-line through the story. The action proceeds briskly.

“The Mandalorian” isn’t as efficient as it used to be.

It’s a strong first episode, a case study for the things that make The Mandalorian such a consistently entertaining series. Chief among those is its economical approach to storytelling.

If this involves a little too much recycling of the series’ own tropes – the narrative is a supersized remake of season one’s second episode – that doesn’t matter much when the special effects are so impressive and when Olyphant’s naughty cheek is such a good odd-couple fit with the deadpan monomania of Pedro Pascal, who continues to give his lead performance its nuance without the use of any facial expressions.

The result was, for a little show, easily its biggest and perhaps most purely entertaining episode to date.

This first episode in the second season is a great example of how the series can work across scale—it can be intimate when it's two characters exchanging information in a vast open landscape, and it can also be massive with action scenes worthy of IMAX.

Far from resting on its laurels, though, if the balance of Season 2 can match the promise of this first episode, it's still easy to have a good feeling about this.

The cinematography, creature work (both CGI and practical), and the action direction in “The Marshal” are all excellent: sweeping, exciting, and gorgeous to look at. ... The adventure story was compelling as well.

Yes, Baby Yoda remains as cute as ever, but more importantly, the show’s titular anti-hero will do what’s right when the time is right, but isn’t afraid of grey areas in other circumstances. In those moments, The Mandalorian is at its boldest and most fascinating.